A Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down FAA Rules for Registering Model Aircraft
The FAA has forced hobby UAV operators to register their aircraft for almost a year now. Today, the rule was struck down by an Appeals court that sided on John A. Taylor’s side (and the side of hobbyist flyers across the nation) that the FAA overstepped their boundaries. Section 336 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 is pretty specific that the FAA is forbidden “from promulgating any rule or regulation regarding model aircraft.”
This ruling does not affect commercial UAV pilots, only hobbyist operators.
We wait to see the FAA’s reaction and if they will challenge this ruling to Supreme Court.
Read MoreNew executive order to help businesses will hurt drone business.
The law of unintended consequences. Trump’s recent executive order to reduce regulation across the federal government is likely to cause more problems for drone use than it solves. While the order was passed to reduce regulation and help stimulate business growth, with the nascent growth of the Drone industry regulations are needed to be updated and changed to give drone pilots more ability to fly their drones for customers. Read the rest of the story on Forbes.
Shooting down any aircraft, including UAVs and other RC planes, is a federal crime.
John Goglia has a piece on Forbes.com stateing that the FAA has responded to questions about the shooting down of drones. Citing 18 U.S.C. 32, the FAA has confirmed that shooting down a Drone or any other aircraft is a felony. This statue goes on further and prohibits interfering with anyone “engaged in the authorized operation of such aircraft”. This means that threatening a drone or drone operator could put a person in jail for 5 years.
While the FAA says that it is a federal crime to shoot down aircraft, they have not stated when they will start prosecuting those that are shooting down UAVs
Read MoreRacing Drones in Boise
Here is a fun article from the Idaho Statesman. It covers the “new” sport of drone racing. It has an angle about getting kids involved and how much they enjoy it.
Read MoreMandatory registration for all UAVs and RC aircraft?
Yesterday, the US Department of Transportation held a press conference outlining new rules that they and the FAA want to implement. These rules would make it so that all UAVs (Hobby and commercial) as well as other hobby aircraft will need to be registered with the FAA. There are a lot of questions with this, and the obvious is about hobby use. Right now, hobbiests do not need to register their aircraft. The process to register an aircraft is very time consuming, and involves many carbon copies… yes, in 2015 they still do not have an electronic means of document submission.
There has been some good commentary about this press-release and proposed new rules:
- 8 Questions Raised by the USDOTs Decision to Register Every Drone in the US also from Aeriographer.com.
- What’s your objective opinion about the Department of Transportation’s announcement that they are forming a task force to essentially create a UAS registration process? from Droneu.com.
- The Problems with Mandatory Drone Registration by Jonathan Rupprecht on jrupprechtlaw.com.
- AMA JOINS DOT TASK FORCE ON UAS REGISTRATION from the AMA Website. They say that they are going to work on having differing rules for small hobby and toy drones.
- U.S. To Require Registration Of All Drones; Hobbyists May Pose Legal Conundrum by John Goglia on Forbes.com. This is a really good read.
The first commercial paper airplane UAV has been certified for commercial use.
PowerUp 3.0 from PowerUp Toys – Image from PowerUp Toys
John Goglia broke the news on Forbes that the FAA has certified a paper airplane for UAV operations. The PowerUp powered paper airplane has a 180′ range and and a 10 minute flight time. Unfortunately, the individual that got the 333 exemption is not legally allowed to fly it commercially, since his helicopter pilot’s license is out of date.
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